In his book, 'Status Anxiety', Alain de Botton...
Hang on one sec. Let me quickly confess to something. I've been dying to start off a blog with a sentence like that. Not only a de Botton quote and/or thought, but a post opened up with the exact line "In his book....". My Rehabilitated Queenslander friend, the current 'Front of House of the Year' holder, berated me the other day for being all a bit too philosophical on this here page. When philosophy is mentioned, the place my mind immediately runs to, is one of the Mel Brooks characters in 'History of the World'. Have you seen it? In one of the stories, set in ancient Rome, he plays an unemployed Standup Philosopher. The premise being, that those early posturing, preening and proclaiming preachers and prophets, were essentially ancient precursors to latter day, modern Standup Comedians (for those of you keeping score at home, that's a sentence with 6 words that begin with 'pr'. Bonus points?). After a wistful wander across catchphrases like "walk this way" and "its good to be the king", the second place my mental mess runs to, is Alain de Botton.
Hang on one sec. Let me quickly confess to something. I've been dying to start off a blog with a sentence like that. Not only a de Botton quote and/or thought, but a post opened up with the exact line "In his book....". My Rehabilitated Queenslander friend, the current 'Front of House of the Year' holder, berated me the other day for being all a bit too philosophical on this here page. When philosophy is mentioned, the place my mind immediately runs to, is one of the Mel Brooks characters in 'History of the World'. Have you seen it? In one of the stories, set in ancient Rome, he plays an unemployed Standup Philosopher. The premise being, that those early posturing, preening and proclaiming preachers and prophets, were essentially ancient precursors to latter day, modern Standup Comedians (for those of you keeping score at home, that's a sentence with 6 words that begin with 'pr'. Bonus points?). After a wistful wander across catchphrases like "walk this way" and "its good to be the king", the second place my mental mess runs to, is Alain de Botton.
I love the Egyptian/Swiss/English/Jewish freak that he is. His books, all of them, are truly brilliant. They manage to somehow straddle a center line, with one foot in the 'useless in practical application -essentially just intellectual recounting that induces mental exercise' (think The Talmud, for those of you out there fortunate enough to attend a Jewish High School) and with the other foot in the 'subtly, self help literature, without getting all Oprah' (think of a Deepak Chopra, that you don't actually want to punch in the face).
I just like to read de Botton - I don't actually wish to write like him. I deign to compose like part AA Gill (but less dyslexic), part Hemingway(but less alcoholic), part Henry Miller (but less syphilitic) and part Tennessee Williams (but far less psychotic). It doesn't matter - even if I did wish to write like him - there is no way I could. The amount of knowledge, academic awareness, and research that he brings, across a massively wide spectrum of topics, is just not the domain achievable by this here waiter.
Therefore, the only way I can align with his presentation and style of philosophical approach, is to directly quote the man.
In his book, 'Status Anxiety', Alain de Botton introduces the concept of 'Status' as an essential love from the wider world around us, that works to define who we essentially are. We are only funny, wealthy or pretty if those we bounce off and around surmise us to be so. The more that judge us to be funny, the funnier we are. Character makeup is therefore not a personal, unilateral determined exactation, but rather a definition and label provided and applied by others. 'Status' becomes and is the key to allowing us to express the very fundamentals of who we would like to be and how we'd like to live and, because it only ever acquired and won from others, we must be constantly compelled to quest for it.
De Botton goes on to state that, as he sees it, life is made up of two quests: the quest for romantic love from a partner or partners and the quest for love from the world around us - status. Both are as key to this whole 'experience' that is our day to day lives, yet, for some reason, romance is celebrated across millenniums, through art, fables and conquests of pride, whilst the quest for status, is derided as vanity, arrogance and negative selfishness. The heartbroken girl deserves empathy, whilst Status Anxiety deserves medication and dismissal.
De Botton goes on to state that, as he sees it, life is made up of two quests: the quest for romantic love from a partner or partners and the quest for love from the world around us - status. Both are as key to this whole 'experience' that is our day to day lives, yet, for some reason, romance is celebrated across millenniums, through art, fables and conquests of pride, whilst the quest for status, is derided as vanity, arrogance and negative selfishness. The heartbroken girl deserves empathy, whilst Status Anxiety deserves medication and dismissal.
In the book, he never goes on to explain why this particular inequity exists. In the way that is 'his way', he fills the pages with a wholistic, historical and current summation of status and delivers vague suggestions for co-existing with our pre-existing human condition.
New York City is the center of the world's Quest for Status. It's a Jerusalem, complete with Wailing Wall, prophets, warring factions and tombs of historical greats. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere (noone is quite able to put things the way Old Blue Eyes did) and millions upon millions come here for this very reason. They come here to gain and grow Status, with a loose preamble to eventually amble off to dustier plains, armed with this love from the world. Whether they are or are not successful in their aims, is the simply the specifics of the cross-plots that interweave across The Great American Story. It's irrelevant fodder to me. What interests me the most, is what actually happens as they stagger along their path, here in The Big Apple.
New York City is the center of the world's Quest for Status. It's a Jerusalem, complete with Wailing Wall, prophets, warring factions and tombs of historical greats. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere (noone is quite able to put things the way Old Blue Eyes did) and millions upon millions come here for this very reason. They come here to gain and grow Status, with a loose preamble to eventually amble off to dustier plains, armed with this love from the world. Whether they are or are not successful in their aims, is the simply the specifics of the cross-plots that interweave across The Great American Story. It's irrelevant fodder to me. What interests me the most, is what actually happens as they stagger along their path, here in The Big Apple.
You see, since I've returned, since I've been away and become accustomed to another town's ways, I've realized something about this place, I really knew all along. Everyone in this city is so Goddamn passionate.Bursting with heart. Full of emotion. Driven by desire. Pushed by desperation. Thrown by frustration. Compelled by belief. Beaten down by heartbreak. Just crying to sing of love and fight for their heart. They don't have the outsider perspective, like I currently have, to be aware of it, but I tell ya, they come here chasing the love from the wider world, that de Botton describes and end up becoming even more so obsessed by Romantic Love. It's what every conversation eventually turns to. It's what every plan for dinner or a drink alludes to. It's what every fashion purchase is motivated by. It informs the selection of location of dwelling. It restrains certain vocal proclamations, whilst amplifying certain other personality traits. It forces some to remain at certain jobs and makes others take leave from entire industries. It what they eat, where they sleep, what they preach, what energizes them and how they revive. It fills the weekdays and weekends; the alleys and avenues; the parks and galleries; and the eyes and pursed lips of everyone you pass.
It's so total, this subconscious Quest for Love, that it even infects visitors, just a few short days after arrival. The tourists love this city. They really do and when they return to whence they have come from, they will, ad nauseum, tell you all about it. What they don't realise, is that it's not the bricks and mortar or the physicality of the place that won them over - it was Love. Good, old fashioned passion. This is what made you pine for a return to New York. This is what made this Waiter pine, crave and need a return. I needed emotion. I needed more emotion. I needed the emotional passion of this city and I needed to feel the Quest for Love, coursing around me.
Well, I'm back now and watch out - this boy is full of love.
